To Shiv or not to Shiv and Romeo, Romeo - where for art thou Romeo!

My regular shifts in the ER happen on Friday nights. I love it because Friday nights are always pretty nutty. I stay busy, and generally feel pretty useful outside of my kitchen. Last night I was hailed like the conquering hero upon my arrival. They were completely swamped. Which meant I spent my hours there hopping like the Mad Hatter on meth. {Unless you were brought in by life flight, ambulance or came in with an axe sticking out of your leg - you were going to be there a while}

I'm now going to tell you a couple of stories from last night that still have me chuckling:



About an hour into my shift an ambulance brings in a 92 year old female complaining of hip pain. She normally resides at a nursing home. She gets a bed, but is fairly combative so is put in a "B or C" room. That means you're in the hallway so the nurses can keep a collective eye on you. (yup, there really are beds in the hallway) She was pretty unhappy about being told she's going to need to go back to the nursing home. Not only did she constantly yell at the nurses and doctors she yelled and threatened anyone who walked by. This is what I heard any time I passed her bed, "I'm going to 'shiv' you! DO you hear me? I will 'shiv' you if you try to make me go back there!". While it was sad that she is unhappy with her home, and sad that her son is in Texas (at least thats what she said) so he can't visit her, I've never been threatened with a "shivving" before. As I was getting off they were arranging transport back to her home. Hopefully she gets a visit from her kids here soon - and stops threatening to shiv people. It's a little disconserting (albeit funny...).

Another giggle moment: I was busy dealing with some records for the secretary and a cop shows up at the desk. He wants to know if we have a patient that has been brought back to a room with a leg injury. Computer database says there are six. Cop wants a white male - about 31. We ask for a name. Cop says - he's not going to give his real one, and I don't know which fake one he'll use. (Just FYI for any cops out there - uhm, when there are 100+ patients in the database, we really can't look for a name that maybe, possibly looks fake) We narrow out a few patiens based on sex and age. (The three year old back in kids care prolly wasn't his perp...) Because of HIPPAA stuff, I got to walk around looking for Mr. Fake name Leg guy with the cop. Whose nickname/callsign is Romeo. At first I thought it was because he was fairly attractive - turns out, he's in search of his Juliet... Oi. I'm not it buddy.

Oh, and I got to turn on the Heli-pad landing lights last night. It's just flipping a switch, but it still made me feel cool.
Then I went home and watched a Pauly Shore movie.